Today\’s post is taking a different path. A more personal, reflective one. That is how I use to write when I was in the monastery and since leaving (it has now been about six years) I try to write like a journalist and it works for an article or two and then I can\’t move. Whether it\’s expectations to be bigger, better or what I don\’t know but my writing just stops. So this morning as I was writing in my personal journal and reflecting on the day I decided, \”What the heck.\” How I used to write is how I am going to continue to write and if that never gets a following or an audience….\”oh well.\”
You see, today is October 4th. In the monastery this would have been a big day because it is the Feast of Saint Francis. As a Franciscan nun anything connected in even the smallest way to St. Francis was a big deal. Here it doesn\’t even make a blimp on the life screen. I don\’t want to go back. But at the same time the 28 years that I was in the monastery continues to play a big part in who I am today.
I am now living in Vancouver, Washington with my boyfriend. I haven\’t been to church in over a year. The deeply, devoted Mass every day, prayer every minute part of my life has switched threads and colors in making up the tapestry of my life to something very different. I pray. I even pray the rosary now and then. But my walk with God and with others is new and different. Not bad as I might have once judged a self such as me while in the monastery but just different.
The other day I was watching a movie with a lot of sex and violence in it and it was okay. I wasn\’t shocked, squirming or nauseated as I would have been six years ago. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Not sure. It did hit me though how different everything is for me now, inside and out.
I think all of us go through life changes and circumstances that transform us into something new. Mine is a bit different than some but whether it\’s a life change from a relationship, a job, a country; when outside stuff in our life changes inside ones do as well. It just happens. Gradually at first. We cling to the old threads of our life but bit by bit the colors change and before we know it we hardly know the self that was yesterday. Sometimes I wonder if I met myself ten years ago today would I even know who that person is? Would I even want to sit down and talk with her? Exchange thoughts and stories?
So I am taking this site in a new direction. Living in Vancouver, Washington will not be so much about the physical reality of living here but rather the inner journey. The reflective, day by day walk with the inner me exploring and reflecting about living in Vancouver.
And by the way, I will not lose my God connection. It\’s just not dressed in a brown habit and a black veil.
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